Results for "google privacy"

Nest's announcement that it will share user data with Google as well as third-party services like Logitech and Jawbone has unsurprisingly reawakened privacy concerns, coinciding with a new hack of the Smart Thermostat that could in theory give nefarious backdoor access. The Nest Developer Program will allow fitness wearables like UP24, Mercedes-Benz cars, and Logitech Harmony remotes to link with the thermostat, but it's Google Now integration - and what that means for Nest's privacy promises - that have some concerned.

Google's Director of Privacy, Alma Whitten, will be stepping down from her position soon. Whitten was first promoted to her position back in 2010 when Google decided it needed someone in charge of making sure that its products provide the best privacy for its users. Whitten has stated that she plans on retiring. Her position will be handed over to Lawrence You, a Google engineer whose been with the company for 8 years.

"Won't somebody think of the children" US lawmakers have pleaded, after an unsatisfactory two hour face-to-face with Google's execs over privacy changes left them unconvinced that the search giant is doing enough to offer data tracking opt-outs. "At the end of the day, I don't think their answers to us were very forthcoming necessarily in what this really means for the safety of our families and our children" California Republican Mary Bono Mack said after the meeting, The Hill reports, despite two of Google's top execs giving her and the other members of the Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade subcommittee a "thorough walkthrough" of the privacy options available today.

Google has updated its privacy policy, replacing the individual agreements for each service like Gmail, Google+ and YouTube with a single policy that already has privacy advocates screaming. Although Google's new terms of service - which will come into effect on March 1 - won't involve collecting any more user information than is currently, it will allow the search giant's various services to share that information between themselves, rather than keep it siloed. From Google's perspective, that allows them to better tailor information to individual users; viewed from a different angle, it's an even greater amount of data and inference one company knows about you.

Let's face it, even with all the remote locking, wiping, and tracking tools in the world, when your phone gets stolen you want one simple place to handle it. Google has launched just that, and with bells on it, in the shape of My Account, a centralized hub from which device security can be managed and account passwords changed, in the case of an emergency. However, it's for more than just emergencies, with Google also using the hub as an interface for all of its personalized tools and services.

Google I/O 2015 is shaping up to be one interesting conference, at least based on rumors and "accidental" leaks. We already have a redacted mention of Android M, a new hands-free "Voice Access" experience, and what may be a new wearable. Now Google is rumored to give Android users a new gift too, probably in the next Android version. Insider sources are claiming that the search giant is just about ready to give users more fine-grained control over what an app can and cannot access, strengthening the platform's privacy controls.

Google is about to face the music about Wallet. A district court denied Google’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit that the company shared too much of a customer’s personal information with a Developer. Lead plaintiff in the case, Alice Svenson, says Google sent “unnecessary” info about her to YCDroid, whom she paid $1.77 to for an email app. Filed in September of 2013, the lawsuit is seeking up to $1,000 per incident and class-action status so others can pursue litigation.

Safer Internet Day is today - did you know? Google wants you to know. They want so badly for you to know that they're giving you a permanent 2GB bump in your Google Drive storage plan just so long as you go through a Security Checkup by the 17th of February. That's 2GB of additional space for your Google Drive account for free, forever, just so long as you go in and do the check. Provided you've ever done this before, doing it now should be super easy.

Google will change its controversial privacy policy in the UK, acquiescing to regulators who maintain the search giant's attempts to simplify its terms & conditions in fact left them half-baked. The agreement, announced today by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK, will see Google make changes to how it collects, uses, and communicates user data by June 30, 2015, with more adjustments over the coming two years. It's another pain point in what has been a nearly three year long headache for Google, which revealed its new approach to privacy back in early 2012.

Google France has posted its public mea-culpa message as demanded by French authorities, conceding that privacy regulators in the country have fined it €150,000 for infringements. The message, which must be left visible for at least 48 hours and printed in a minimum of 13-point font and in the Arial typeface, was part of the punishment leveled by the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), with Google's protestations that it would cause irreparable damage to its reputation failing to convince an appeals court last week.